Alfie Fripp, far right, with fellow Prisoners of War. 50 RAF officers executed by the Gestapo following their escape in 1944

He acted as a spy for the escapers – and a thief. In his job in charge of collecting Red Cross parcels for the prisoners from a depot in the nearby town he found the opportunity to ‘liberate’ numerous items to help the tunnelers, such as wire cutters, files and other tools.

Later he learned with anger of the murder of the escapees – one of them Mike Casey, the pilot of his plane.

“When I saw the site of Harry the tunnel, I thought of Mike and said a prayer for him,” he said.

Reginald Cleaver, 84, from Brinklow near Rugby, was a man who resembled the James Garner character in The Great Escape who scavenged and stole items from the Germans to aid in equipping all the escapers with proper papers and uniforms.

Reg, shot down in a Halifax over Holland in 1943, added: “I have been back once before and I knew I had to come on this trip because it is such an important anniversary.”

Accompanying the group of 12 veterans are serving RAF volunteers who built the hut and will repaint the names of the dead men on the memorial at Harry’ whose route is marked by stones in the woods where the camp once stood.